CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-17 19:47:06 (3 comments, 13 reshares, 42 +1s)

"Ancestry -- where my great-great-great-great grandparents are from -- is a fact. What you call people with that particular ancestry is not. It changes depending on where you are in the world, when you are there, and who has power."

2013-05-17 18:49:16 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Dunder Mifflin was a disaster as a business. Here's why:

2013-05-17 13:03:10 (19 comments, 19 reshares, 100 +1s)

Bill Gates is like a supervillain in reverse.

2013-05-16 19:45:57 (278 comments, 190 reshares, 659 +1s)

The New York Times reported Thursday that President Obama frequently fantasizes to close aides about “going Bulworth,” a reference to the 1998 movie in which Sen. Jay Bulworth, played by Warren Beatty, drops all pretense and begins saying exactly what he thinks. So I asked a number of ex-Obama aides and political consultants what the president would say if he went Bulworth?

2013-04-24 16:39:09 (33 comments, 21 reshares, 60 +1s)

So many, many charts!

2013-03-31 21:08:47 (9 comments, 5 reshares, 25 +1s)

So everybody says that 2012 proved the Republican Party needs a total overhaul. But political scientist John Sides says -- with data! -- that everybody is wrong. 

2013-03-26 18:05:25 (159 comments, 150 reshares, 336 +1s)

We pay $94 for a doctor's visit, Canadians pay $30. We pay $914 for an angiogram, the French pay $264. We pay $40,000 for a hip replacement, the British pay $11,000. We pay $4,300 for a day in the hospital, the Dutch pay $730. I could go on.... 

2013-03-23 19:52:10 (22 comments, 22 reshares, 48 +1s)

Dizzying but invisible depth

You just went to the Google home page.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit of about how browsers work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play HTTP, HTML, CSS, ECMAscript, and more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Let's simplify.

You just connected your computer to www.google.com.

Simple, isn't it?

What just actually happened?

Well, when you know a bit about how networks work, it's not quite that simple. You've just put into play DNS, TCP, UDP, IP, Wifi, Ethernet, DOCSIS, OC, SONET, and more. Those are actually such incredibly... more »

2013-02-23 23:57:22 (15 comments, 21 reshares, 64 +1s)

All of the facts

2013-02-04 15:29:25 (16 comments, 9 reshares, 47 +1s)

The ad is meant to make you feel better about watching football. It’s meant to show how the NFL has made the game safer, with pads and and helmets and rules. Instead, it shows how it’s made the game more dangerous, making it easier for the players to hit harder, last longer, endure more trauma. And it shows how we’re complicit, too. Even as the ad is meant to assuage our guilt about the game’s violence, it’s all about the game’s violence — it’s one big hit after another, because that’s why we tune in, that’s why we like to watch. The ad celebrates the NFL’s sobriety by ordering everyone a round of shots. 

2013-01-12 17:46:54 (7 comments, 5 reshares, 34 +1s)

The story of the world's greatest pickpocket

2012-12-29 01:10:10 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 44 +1s)

Hosting the Rachel Maddow show tonight. We've got lots of fiscal cliff news, and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to react to it. Plus, I plan to actually say the sentence "but one is a mouse and the other is Snoop Dogg" on a primetime news show. And it will make sense! Tune in!

2012-12-28 01:24:21 (15 comments, 1 reshares, 62 +1s)

Hosting the Rachel Maddow show tonight. I usually have a lot of graphs when I do these things. But tonight we really, really have a lot of graphs.

2012-12-12 01:45:43 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 37 +1s)

Hosting the Rachel Maddow show tonight. Here's my 10-word preview: Michigan. Filibusters. Secret Social Security cuts. Ben Nelson's hair. Marijuana.

2012-12-08 01:15:38 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 57 +1s)

I'm hosting the Rachel Maddow show tonight. Here's a 10-word preview: Gay marriage. Peter Orszag. Ignore politicians. Space pictures. Many graphs.
 
Tune in!

2012-12-03 22:40:15 (26 comments, 9 reshares, 62 +1s)

Republicans are in a far weaker position than they were in 2011. And Boehner knows it. His newest offer is proof. In 2011, it was Obama chasing after Boehner with compromise proposals. In 2012, it’s the reverse.

It is not surprising that Boehner wishes he could go back in time and accept the president’s offer from 2011, or fight for the compromise Bowles outlined before the supercommittee. Those are, from his vantage point today, quite good deals. But elections have consequences, and the consequence of this election is that those offers are no longer on the table.

2012-11-30 03:33:15 (5 comments, 13 reshares, 53 +1s)

Wonkblog's mega fiscal cliff FAQ!

2012-11-26 21:07:38 (21 comments, 1 reshares, 21 +1s)

America is a country that not only permits its log cabin presidents, but celebrates their humble origins. It’s also a country that just chose to reelect an African American president who was born to an absentee Kenyan father rather than the son of a former governor. Even Lincoln would raise his eyebrows at that.

But it is also, at this moment, a country in which many are eagerly looking toward a 2016 presidential race in which the Republican frontrunner is a Bush and the Democratic frontrunner is a Clinton. And, further down the ladder, it is a country that is falling behind its peer group in social mobility. 

2012-11-22 00:43:18 (20 comments, 2 reshares, 52 +1s)

Hosting Last Word tonight, 10pm ET on MSNBC. And in my never-ending quest to have the nerdiest show to ever cross your television screen, we have not only graphs, but a segment that is about both Mitt Romney and...Star Trek. Sorry/you're welcome.

2012-11-21 00:38:03 (16 comments, 2 reshares, 38 +1s)

Hosting the Last Word on MSNBC tonight. Gonna get into why Grover Norquist is suddenly not such a scary guy, why the CEO of Goldman Sachs's plan to make you to work until you're much, much older, and we've of course got some great, great graphs. Tune in!

2012-11-11 18:30:02 (202 comments, 74 reshares, 462 +1s)

Step back and take an accounting of these last few years: The United States of America, a land where slaves were kept 150 years ago and bathrooms were segregated as recently as 50 years ago, elected and reelected our first black president. We passed and ratified a universal health-care system. We saw the first female Speaker of the House, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, and the first openly gay member of the Senate. We stopped a Great Depression, rewrote the nation’s financial regulations, and nearly defaulted on our debt for the first time in our history. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Washington and the District of Columbia legalized gay marriage, and the president and the vice president both proclaimed their support. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana. We killed the most dangerous terrorist in the world and managed two wars.W... more »

2012-11-07 04:42:01 (14 comments, 18 reshares, 71 +1s)

Typically, presidential elections are about, well, hope and change. The candidates make lots of promises about all the policies they’ll change, then they hope that they can get those promises through Congress. Usually, they fail.

President Obama’s reelection, ironically, isn’t about hope and change. The hope is largely gone, but the changes -- in the form of Obamacare, Wall Street reform, and tax increases -- are already happening. Obama's reelection is a guarantee of change.

2012-11-06 21:22:01 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

It’s hard to divine when polls will prove accurate – and when they’ll lead election watchers astray. Pollsters do, however, have a few tips on how to make the most of election polls. 

2012-11-06 20:43:39 (31 comments, 15 reshares, 70 +1s)

This is, in the end, likely to be the ironic legacy of the Tea Party and the tactics it chose: It arose in ferocious opposition to Obama’s agenda, but by driving Specter out of the party and pushing pure conservatives over more electable Republican candidates, it gave Senate Democrats the majorities they needed to pass and protect the key accomplishments of Obama’s presidency — and that’s before you get into whether the Tea Party’s influence in the Republican presidential primaries forced Mitt Romney to the right and gave Obama a crucial edge in a close presidential election.

2012-10-18 14:24:35 (10 comments, 11 reshares, 34 +1s)

Three facts about the ads swing-state voters are seeing right now:

1) "Obama and allies aired about 5,000 more television ads than Romney and allies last week."

2) "Each pro-Obama ad has cost an average of $502 dollars.  But each pro-Romney ad has cost an average of $630."

3) " The consulting firm Evolving Strategies recently completed a large randomized experiment in which participants saw pro-Romney ads, pro-Obama ads, both, or neither.  On the whole, the Obama ads were more effective in persuading weak partisans and undecided voters—even when the Romney ads were shown alongside.  Their effect was particularly notable among women."

More -- including graphs -- here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/18/the-air-war-team-obama-aired-about-5000-more-ads-than-team-romney-last-week/

2012-09-24 19:42:09 (23 comments, 13 reshares, 52 +1s)

Here’s the catch: Romney only controls the money raised by his campaign. The money raised by the RNC is controlled by the RNC. The money raised by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC is controlled by Rove and his partners. And while these groups want Romney to be president, they are not solely devoted to the task of electing Romney as president. If they are devoted to anything, it’s to blocking Obama.

Which leads to Romney’s nightmare scenario: If things don’t turn around for Romney soon, those super PACs may give up on the task of electing Romney as president and turn to the task of encircling Obama’s second term with a Republican House and a Republican Senate.

2012-09-20 17:35:20 (25 comments, 1 reshares, 24 +1s)

Wondering why Wall Street would hire Tim Pawlenty when Romney looks likely to lose? Suzy Khimm has the answer.

2012-09-20 13:47:49 (193 comments, 77 reshares, 326 +1s)

The worst of Romney’s now-infamous comments about “the 47 percent” came in this couplet: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Put aside the tin-eared term “those people.” When he said this, Romney didn’t just write off half the country behind closed doors. He also confirmed the worst suspicions about who he is: an entitled rich guy with no understanding of how people who aren’t rich actually live.

2012-09-18 02:09:53 (476 comments, 230 reshares, 834 +1s)

“My job is not to worry about those people,” Mitt Romney said of the 47 percent of Americans who are likely to vote for Barack Obama. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

There will be plenty said about the politics of Romney’s remarks. But I want to take a moment and talk about the larger argument behind them, because this vision of a society divided between “makers” and “takers” is core to the Republican nominee’s policy agenda.

2012-09-12 22:10:08 (19 comments, 1 reshares, 35 +1s)

I'm hosting the Ed Show tonight on MSNBC, 8pm ET. We'll have a lot on Libya, with Spencer Ackerman, Ben Smith, Keith Ellison, and more. We'll also have more than you might expect on...video games.

2012-08-24 19:19:48 (12 comments, 3 reshares, 41 +1s)

I'm hosting Hardball tonight and I am very, very excited for the first segment. Hint: Ta-Nehisi Coates. Tune in!

2012-08-21 21:14:10 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 28 +1s)

I'm guest hosting the Ed Show tonight at 8pm Eastern on MSNBC. Topics include: The actual, real, important policy question behind Todd Aikn's comments; the actual, real, important political question behind Todd Akin's candidacy; the key fact about Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney's budgets that has gone entirely missing from the national conversation; and a serious look at what would happen if everyone in the world stood next to each other and jumped up and down at the same time. 

Tune in!

2012-07-26 12:28:06 (16 comments, 7 reshares, 37 +1s)

Compared to the law as it’s currently written, both Republicans and Democrats want to cut taxes on the rich. Remember: The Democrats’ extension cuts taxes on all income between $1 and $250,000. If you make a million dollars, you still get a a tax cut on that first quarter-million. For that reason, the Tax Policy Center estimates that the Senate Democrats’ bill, if you assume it’s later followed by an AMT patch and an extension of the 2009 estate tax rates (which everyone does assume), would cut taxes on the top one percent by more than $17,000. The Republican bill, by contrast, would cut taxes on the top one percent by more than $75,000.

2012-07-17 17:31:20 (12 comments, 11 reshares, 29 +1s)

To understand the confusing conditions under which Mitt Romney left Bain Capital, and the way in which they actually tell us something important about Romney, you need to understand the unusual deal he struck when he was first hired to run it.

2012-07-16 17:23:42 (64 comments, 9 reshares, 46 +1s)

7. The best-world version of Mitt Romney is running a campaign that embraces creative destruction and outsourcing and buyouts and all the rest of it because these things help our economy become more dynamic. That’s where his business experience at Bain might actually help him understand the economy — he has seen the costs of firm-level sclerosis and stagnation firsthand. Think something along the lines of this essay by Reihan Salam. The problem is that the candidate running that campaign needs to have a real answer for the workers who are hurt by that dynamism. Part of that answer would need to be a larger safety net — something akin to Denmark’s “flexicurity” system. But the modern GOP won’t permit Romney to run a campaign that embraces a larger safety net. And so he can’t embrace his own economic experience without appearing cruel.

8. The irony is that the candidate who couldhave squared th... more »

2012-07-13 13:53:25 (165 comments, 171 reshares, 462 +1s)

Hating on congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark Twain's old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112th Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever had.

2012-07-12 17:03:15 (47 comments, 29 reshares, 69 +1s)

There are more uninsured people in the United States than there are people who live in Canada.

There are more uninsured people in the United States than there are people who voted for George W. Bush in 2000.

There are 27,000 times as many uninsured people in the United States as there are pandas in the entire world.

These and other facts about the uninsured in one amazing infographic from Dylan Matthews:

2012-07-10 20:31:00 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

As a columnist and occasional talking head, I worry this next line will get me kicked out of the guild, but here goes: I have no idea what’s driving this campaign. It’s not what we’re covering in the media. It’s not what we’re seeing in the economy. It’s not what the campaigns are doing. It’s not the personal qualities of the candidates. But here are a few observations:

2012-07-10 16:48:34 (13 comments, 18 reshares, 46 +1s)

The National Climactic Data Center has just released its “State of the Climate” report for June 2012. The last 12 months in the mainland United States, it notes, were the warmest on record. What’s notable, however, is that every single one of the last 13 months were in the top third for their historical distribution (i.e., April 2012 was in the top third for warmest Aprils, etc).

“The odds of this occurring randomly,” notes NCDC, “is 1 in 1,594,323.”

2012-07-10 13:26:09 (7 comments, 6 reshares, 26 +1s)

At this point, Mitt Romney could outsource Seal Team Six to China and it’s not clear even a single voter would change their mind. Barack Obama could peel off his face to reveal he’s a space alien and some of his support would firm up — at least he wasn’t born in Kenya.

2012-07-09 23:37:36 (39 comments, 6 reshares, 16 +1s)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared Monday his state would not participate in the health law’s Medicaid expansion, becoming the sixth Republican governor to make such a promise. Taken together, those governors opting-out would single-handedly shrink the Medicaid expansion by nearly 4 million people.

While the stakes are high for the White House, the territory is by no means uncharted. Washington has twice faced off with states over federal health care expansions, when Medicaid initially launched in 1965 and with the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997. In both cases, all 50 states ultimately signed up – but not without some wrangling.

2012-07-09 18:46:39 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 17 +1s)

The Obama administration has been facing a difficult choice: Does it anger its base and muddle its message by working with Republicans to put off the fiscal cliff — and extend all the Bush tax cuts — until 2013? Or does it stand and fight on fiscal policy, even if that means increasing the chance that markets begin to panic in the most crucial months for the president’s reelection?

With today’s announcement, the administration has made its preference clear: Stand and fight, and hope the economy — and President Obama’s reelection hopes — survive the fallout.

2012-07-09 13:54:46 (5 comments, 12 reshares, 38 +1s)

When asked to defend his economic record as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney protested that he shouldn't be blamed for the jobs lost during his first 11 months. What if you apply that rule to President Obama?

2012-07-06 13:25:55 (77 comments, 1 reshares, 22 +1s)

Over and over again, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the labor market was "unchanged" in June. The unemployment rate? "Unchanged." The number of unemployed persons? "Unchanged." The ranks of the long-term unemployed? "Unchanged." But in this economy, "unchanged" isn't good enough. The question now is whether our economic policy will change in response.

2012-07-05 13:24:48 (4 comments, 5 reshares, 25 +1s)

Today, the ADP payroll survey — a closely watched estimate of private-sector job growth — came in a lot better than expected. ADP says the private-sector added 176,000 jobs on June. That’s well above the 100,000 economists were predicting, and if Friday’s official BLS report looks anything like it, it’ll be a strong sign that May was just a bad month rather than a real interruption to the (anemic) recovery.

So is ADP right? We…don’t know. It’s definitely not infallible. In May, it said private-sector payrolls grew by 136,000, but the official Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate put growth at 69,000. Over at Business Insider, Joe Weisenthal worked up a chart comparing the ADP and BLS numbers, and as you can see, it’s a pretty close fit, at least most of the time

2012-07-05 12:38:31 (29 comments, 2 reshares, 37 +1s)

Here's what changes in the health care law if Mitt Romney thinks the individual mandate is a "tax" and not a "penalty": Nothing. Here's what changes in the election if Mitt Romney thinks the individual mandate is a "tax" rather than a "penalty": Nothing. So why are we spending so much time talking about this?

2012-07-02 22:44:07 (13 comments, 1 reshares, 38 +1s)

Hosting the Rachel Maddow show tonight. We've got graphs, Dahlia Lithwick, the incredible deal blue states are trying to give red states, and news that will literally change the universe as we know it. Should be fun!

2012-07-01 16:44:39 (7 comments, 7 reshares, 28 +1s)

"Are wildfires in the Western United States getting bigger and more severe? There’s a fair bit of evidence that yes, they have been. And, ecologists and fire experts say, that’s not a fluke. Thanks to both climate change and shifting forestry practices, humans may bear some responsibility here."

2012-06-28 19:34:08 (16 comments, 23 reshares, 59 +1s)

After Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes deftly beat back Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court-packing proposal, FDR said, with grudging admiration, that Hughes was the best politician in the country. In today’s decision, Roberts showed that, like Hughes before him, he’s got those skills in spades. Here's his long game:

2012-06-28 14:49:55 (54 comments, 26 reshares, 89 +1s)

“The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld”

That’s what SCOTUSBlog wrote moments after the Supreme Court announced its ruling on the health-care law. But it wasn’t upheld in the way most thought it would be. The decision was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the Court’s liberals, and Justice Anthony Kennedy casting his vote with the conservatives.

This will be covered, in many quarters, as a political story. It means President Obama — and Solicitor General Don Verrilli — are popping the champagne. It means that Mitt Romney and the Republicans who were fighting the health-care law have suffered a setback. It will be covered in other quarters as a legal story: It is likely to be central to Roberts’ legacy, and perhaps even to how we understand the divisions in the Court going forward.

But that’s not, in reality, what this decision means.Rather, the indiv... more »